Overview
Mount Yamantau, or Yamantaw (, ) is a mountain in the Ural Mountains, located in Beloretsky District, Bashkortostan, Russia. Standing at , it is the highest mountain in the Southern Ural section, and lies within the South Ural Nature Reserve. An extensive secret bunker complex has allegedly been built under Yamantau, per United States claims, by the Russian government or the Russian Armed Forces, similar to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in the U.S. state of Colorado.
Name
The name of the mountain is derived from Yaman taw (Яман тау), which translates to "evil mountain", "bad mountain", or "wicked mountain" in the local Bashkir language. The meaning behind the name is believed to originate from the many inconveniences of the mountain – a big bear population, surrounding swamps and rocky slopes – resulting in its area being a troublesome herding place.
Geography
Yamantau has two peaks: Big Yamantau and Small Yamantau . Both peaks are plateaus, with a big area and flat relief. Up to 1,000–1,100 m elevation, the mountain slope is covered with mixed forest, in some places with driftwood, occasional alpine meadows and rocky outcrops. Above 1,100 m elevation, there are no trees or bushes, and instead rock streams of various sizes, with grass, flowers and moss start to appear.
Bunker complex claims
Yamantau, along with Kosvinsky Mountain (600 km to the north), are claimed by the United States of being home to a large secret nuclear facility or bunker, or both. Large excavation projects have been observed by U.S. satellite imagery after the fall of the Soviet Union, as recently as the late 1990s during the government of Boris Yeltsin. and possibly a third, Alkino-2, were built on the site. These garrisons were unified into the closed town of Mezhgorye () in 1995, and the garrisons are said to house 30,000 workers each, served by large rail lines. Responding to questions regarding Yamantau in 1996, Russia's Defense Ministry stated: "The practice does not exist in the Defense Ministry of Russia of informing foreign mass media about facilities, whatever they are, that are under construction in the interests of strengthening the security of Russia."
See also
* Nuclear bunker buster * Raven Rock Mountain Complex * Cheyenne Mountain Complex * Kosvinsky Kamen * Underground City
External links
* The Return of the Doomsday Machine?